Next day I purposed to go down to Woadley; to-night I would spend with my father at Pope Lane. There were explanations to be made; explanations where my father was concerned, were never comfortable. I walked with a pebble in my shoe till I had got them over. I had sure proof that he was annoyed, for none of my letters, written to him since my recovery, had been answered. Thrusting my hand into the creeper, I found the knob. Far away at the back of the house the bell tinkled; after an interval footsteps shuffled down the path. The door opened cautiously; in the slit it made I saw the face of Hetty. There was something in its expression that warned me. “Father at home?” I asked cheerfully, pushing forward. “Master Dante, or Sir Dante as I should say, don’t you go for to see ’im.” “Why not?” “’E’s bitter against you.” “What nonsense! Here, take one of these bags. Why should he be bitter against me?” She crumpled her apron nervously. “’Cause of ’er--the woman in Ameriky. I don’t know the rights of it, but ’e’s ’ardly spoke your name since.” “But I’ve come to see him. I’ve only just landed.” She stared at me gloomily, barring the entrance. Across her shoulder I could see the path winding round the house and down to the garden where everything was familiar. Once I had longed to leave it! How much I would now give to get back! The leaves shivered, making patches of sunlight move like gold checkers, pushed forward and backward on the lawn. My mind keenly visualized all the details that lay out of sight. I knew just how my father must look sitting writing at his study-window. I ought to have told him; he might have understood. But the barrier of reticence had always divided us. “If I was you, Sir Dante, I’d go away and write ’im. I’ll see that ’e reads it this time. Yes I will, if I loses my plaice.” “_This time?_” Her cheeks went crimson. “’E didn’t read the letters you sent after ’ers. ’E tossed ’em aside.” “But the Snow Lady and Ruthie, they’ll see me.” She looked furtively over her shoulder at the house, then she slipped out into the lane beside me, almost closing the door. “There ain’t no Miss Ruthie now,” she said sadly. Then, in a voice which betrayed pride, “She’s Lady Halloway. ’Is Lordship, ’e were a wery ’ot lover, ’e were--wouldn’t take no for an answer and suchlike. After you’d gone away angry and no one knew where you’d gone, Miss Ruthie felt kind o’ flat; but she kept on sayin’ no to ’is Lordship, though she was always cryin’. Then that letter came from Americky. It kind o’ took us by surprise; Miss Ruthie especially. We felt--well, you know, sir--disrespectable. So she gave way like, and now she’s Lady Halloway. And there you are. We’ve ’ad a ’eap of trouble.” Little Ruthie the wife of that man! I had made them unrespectable, so she had rectified my mistake by marrying the father of Lottie’s child! “You’d better write.”